


Naked in Barings

by st_aurafina



Category: Sanctuary (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-01
Updated: 2014-01-01
Packaged: 2018-01-07 00:50:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 812
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1113528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nigel wakes up naked and chained to a bed in Watson's cellar. Things could be worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Naked in Barings

**Author's Note:**

  * For [apatternedfever](https://archiveofourown.org/users/apatternedfever/gifts).



When Nigel wakes up, he is naked and cuffed to a bed in a musty room with no windows and rats on the floor. In fairness, there's just one cuff around his wrist anchored to the iron bed frame, and a single rat. But it's a giant rat. As tall as a four year old, it stands on its hind legs, watching him with intelligent boot-button eyes. It wears a waistcoat, and proffers a tall glass of water on a napkin-covered tray. 

"Uughh," Nigel moans and turns on one side, awkwardly clanking the short chain over his head. When he next awakens, this will have been all a dream. Too much to drink. That's the problem. 

The next time he opens his sandy, gritty eyes, there is James, arms crossed, and face thunderous. Behind him and to the left, the tall rat stands with paws neatly crossed in front of it. Nigel scrabbles one-handed for the woollen blanket that has slipped down to his knees. James watches, impassive. If Nigel wasn't so hungover, he'd blush. 

His tongue feels eight inches thick and tastes three days dead as he struggles to cover himself. "Didn't know you had a rat for a valet, James." He rattles the chain. "Or a dungeon. Should have guessed that one, though. You always did seem the type." 

"You were found, in the Barings vault, naked and _intoxicated_." James clearly thinks the latter is the greater crime. 

Nigel shrugs, and the chain clatters again, painfully close to the ears. "You know how it works: I can't exactly go in with clothes on. And it's powerful nippy in that vault, let me tell you." 

"What were you thinking? Robbing a bank? If it wasn't for some fast talking and a telepathic fungus, you'd have woken up in prison." James sends Ratty away with a nod, and then perches awkwardly at the end of the bed. "Nigel, if you needed money, you had but to ask." 

Bitterness rises in Nigel's throat, and this time, it's not just the liquor. "You really believe that, don't you? Head stuck in the sand, that's you, James. We don't ask each other for help these days. We barely talk, you and me and the others. You're stuck in a lab with Helen half the year. Have you spoken to Nikola lately? Heard some of the stuff he's going on about?" Nigel leans forward as far as the chains let him, so that he can hiss into James' face. "What does Druitt get up to, wandering the streets so late at night?" 

James blanches, pulls away, and stands up again, all wrapped in protocol and appropriate distance. Nigel sees the fear in his eyes, though. James suspects, and he does not tell his friends. 

"We're breaking up, James, me mate. Like ice on the sea. We took too many liberties, with science, with our friendship." Nigel closes his eyes, lets his head fall back on the thin pillow.

James takes two angry steps forward, and takes Nigel's chin. "Never say that again. What we did was to better the world. Whatever we have come to now, that does not change." 

For a moment, it is just like before, when they could do anything. Nigel wants to believe that it can be that way again, but it took five of them to change the world, and here, in James' cellar, there are only two. Still, of those two, one didn't give a fig for James' gentlemanly exterior. Nigel takes the opportunity to grab the back of James' head and kiss him with enthusiasm that he didn't realise was there. 

It's worth it for the way James' eyebrows shoot upward, and his undignified scramble back to the safety of arm's reach. 

"Dear God, Nigel, your breath could kill an elephant." James' expression is a very satisfying and familiar mix of appalled and amused horror. 

The rat valet knocks gently at the door, and appears with water for washing and a borrowed suit. James steps away from the bed, fusses with his cuffs, and gives every impression of having been up to something improper. No poker face, that James Watson, thinks Nigel, with a grin. He doesn't know if this will be the saving of their friendship – probably not, let's be realistic – but at least he'll be able to say that he didn't back away from the chance to make it good between them again. He reaches up for the handcuff, gives it a professional eye, and gets to work on it with a piece of metal prised from the mattress. 

James shakes his head in mock-despair, and leaves him to escape on his own. "Come up for breakfast as soon as you're decent." 

"That'll be never," says Nigel, and works on the lock. Shouldn't take long. James keeps his handcuffs well oiled, and Nigel wouldn't expect anything less.


End file.
